Review – Moon-Flash

Apparently Moon-Flash actually has a sequel, but I’m not that interested in it. It’s interesting — probably a novella in length, and written with McKillip’s usual lyricism and style — but I felt it was whole enough in itself, and I’m not interested enough in the world or characters to keep following it. Their trip down the river leads to an almost inevitable conclusion, but the story manages to say something about myth and belief, about the way different cultures interpret things, about relationships between cultures. It’s a little Ursula Le Guin-ish, in that sense, now that I think about it: I could picture her writing a very similar story.

It’s actually not as fantastical as the other works by McKillip I’ve read before, so that makes it interesting too in comparison to the magic of her other work. At the same time, that’s here too, under the surface, in the myth-making.